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Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Why Is "Christianity Today" Defending Margaret Sanger?

The magazine "Christianity Today," founded by none other than Billy Graham, is, in a published article, defending Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist who founded Planned Parenthood.

Why?

This article causes some of us to wonder what Christianity Today is in the minds of its editors.

Isn't this foreign to Billy Graham's message? Is this what he was thinking when he founded the magazine?

Franklin Graham publicly shared last week that there are a number of people who challenge him for "speaking out" on the so-called "controversial" issues of our times---reminding him that his father Billy never did that.

Franklin sets the record straight. And in doing so reminds us of one of the great causes of moral decline in the American culture.

Lifenews reports that there seems to be a disconnect between the magazine "Christianity Today" (CT) at least in this published article---and the Christ who inspired the magazine.

Lifenews brings attention to an article in CT on the "social good" of contraception, and in doing so praises Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, even defending her worldview.

The CT article is based on an interview with Rachel Marie Stone in which she reflects on her experiences in Malawi, Africa, a place I too have spent time in ministry---the people she met and the global needs for birth control as she sees them.

My purpose in writing this is to bring to your attention the position CT lays out on Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, and how it reveals the disability of willful blindness toward Sanger's reprehensible worldview. One that stands in absolute contrast to a biblical worldview.

And this advocacy is coming from the "Christian community."

The following is an excerpt from the article:

On my first tour of Zomba Central Hospital in Malawi, Africa, where I lived from 2012-2014, an older nurse-midwife, Lena, told me proudly that she had visited the city of my birth, New York, to study at the Margaret Sanger Center in Lower Manhattan.

“A great woman, Margaret Sanger!” Lena said.

I wasn’t sure how to reply; Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, which, contrary to what Sanger would have wished, is today the largest provider of abortions in the United States. As it happens, Planned Parenthood did not, in Sanger’s day, provide abortions. Sanger herself opposed abortion, saying that “no matter how early it was performed it was taking a life.” But Sanger, like many medical professionals in her day, did hold eugenicist ideas. Eugenics were enshrined into compulsory sterilization laws in many U.S. states and supported by organizations like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. I do not mean to excuse Sanger for holding these views, but I do want to give the charge of “eugenicist” a more complete background.

It occurred to me that Lena’s world was much closer to Sanger’s than mine.

Deception. Sanger did indeed believe in abortion. Although she made a couple of misleading statements about her beliefs on abortion, her life's work says otherwise.

There's more. You can read the entire article linked above.

You will note that Rachel Marie Stone is a regular contributor to both Christianity Today and to Jim Wallis' religious left, social justice Sojourners magazine.

Rachel Stone received strong push back from some evangelicals. She immediately began posting on Twitter trying to explain away her comments regarding Sanger, then later removed some of her attempted explanations. Her Tweets, however, were captured in the Lifenews article before they were deleted.

This article reveals a different gospel than that preached by Billy Graham and certainly that given us in the New Testament.

Clearly this is not what Mr. Graham had in mind.

The CT article continues to make the case for universal birth control globally. Her case is identical to that made by PP, Hillary Clinton and other abortion advocates. Exactly the same narrative.

I strongly recommend you read both the Lifenews article and the CT article.

Last week, Franklin Graham told Tony Perkins, "We're losing our country, the foundations of this country are collapsing and falling apart."

He said, "My father wasn't worried about losing our country when he was growing up---that wasn't the issue."

Franklin told Perkins, "You know, I have people come up to me and they say 'Franklin, your father would not be speaking out like this.' My answer to them is to say, when my father went to school, the Ten Commandments were still on the wall. When my father went to school, the teacher led the whole classroom in the Lord's Prayer."

He says, "We better stand up, and we better speak up, and we better start getting Christians to run [for office] and voting for those Christians that run."

Graham said, "Get involved...We cannot be silent any longer..." He said, "The gays and lesbians have their people who run for office. You have every other group that's out there having their people run for office."

He said, "The country that we're living in today is not the same as when my father grew up. It's a different day, it's a different century, and we have a whole different, new set of issues in front of us."

Indeed we do.

Franklin advocates that Christians "Get involved and start taking over their communities by getting Christians to run for political office." He says " I'm talking about at every level. If we can do that across this country, this next election. If we can get Christians to begin to run for office---that's where we start."

Agreed.

However, we have been losing on 2 fronts.

First, we have been losing politically. I don't believe America has ever had an administration that openly mocks and defies God's Word, and the laws of this land that were drawn from Scripture as this present administration does. We have too many politicians who say one thing and once elected do something very different---and some who blatantly stand against American's Judeo Christian values without apology. Active citizens can change this with their vote.

Secondly, there is a web of deception in our culture that unfortunately is born out of the so-called Christian church, not politics. There is not a more current or poignant example than this comment made on our web site yesterday in regard to Friday's article about VP Joe Biden:

Anonymous 9:48 AM, March 16, 2015Thank you for what you do Gary. I shared this article on my Church's facebook page on Friday, and boy did that cause a stir. What I had thought would be a helpful reinforcement became more of an education for myself on where my church, the denomination, and many attendees are actually choosing to believe. My sharing of this link was removed by the pastors. Terms like 'faithful dissent' were used to oppose the Biblical principals so clearly laid out in places like Romans 1. My eyes are open more and more each day, and I am shocked at what I am seeing. My eyes started seeing more clearly about 18 months ago when reading the book "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas. God's ways are above man's ways. God's glory will always trump confusion and evil.

Spiritual and political restoration must begin with prayer.

God help us.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Pro-Active. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.

I will always remember Billy Graham's preaching being not only about the culture of the day being so often contrary to God (as well was mankind's individual tendency) but his focus always being about individual souls.

The deception seemed to be either of the culture at that time, or deception being on an individual level when concerning the Church.

I believe there are faults or failings that can show up on a corporate level, but I also believe there are such things as corporate blessings, atmospheres of blessings on a corporate level, spiritual blessings that show up on corporate levels on places where we do want to be. May God restore that to the Church.

Denying the Word of God and his Natural Law is already having very dire consequences......this is just the beginning of our suffering as a nation....birth rates are down 25% in the U.S.....all colors, all creeds.....far too many of the children being born are unhealthy or downright damaged.....sexually transmitted diseases are making our children sterile....we are about to lose a whole generation of citizens.....pray for mercy. Church leaders are ignoring all the dire warnings around them...denying the reality of the wages of sin that cannot be "fixed" by mortal men. God help us.....